In her garden
 

by Katelyn Moorman

she scatters compost over square plots
and listens to the trees whistle over
the sound of the wind blowing through
the hoops in her ears, forming a rich,
low, vaguely-harmonica-esque vibrato.

she sticks her thumb into
the wet, malleable soil, probing for prenatal roots
while staring out at the edge of the woods,
freckled with fruit flies anxiously whirring
in circles as cicadas emerge and shed themselves against the bark.

she sets seeds on leaves
—placemats for ants—
little offerings meant to
never grow, never crack and
split and burst with life,
meant to be a stagnant sacrifice
to justify the toil
of pressing the other—chosen—seeds
deep into the soil
where they will thrive, grow, decompose,
and die.

Katelyn Moorman is a senior at the University of Wyoming. When she isn’t pretending to read books for her English degree, she’s forcing her friends to watch bad ’80s movies with her. Her work has been published in Asterism, Scribendi, The Rush, and more.